beckity

I eyed the packed bus warily, and joined the queue to get on. The heat was unrelenting and I felt a trickle of sweat down my back as I stepped onto the bus. The card reader beeped me through and I greeted the bus driver. 'Do you want to sit down Madame?' he asked, and I laughed as I looked at the crowd in front of me. 'I'd love to, but...' He got to his feet and turned his head to face down the bus. 'OK, who else can give us their sit for Madame, who is pregnant?' People shifted in their seats and avoided eye contact, unwilling to join the hovering mass. I felt my face, already red from the sun, blush deeply and as a man towards the middle of the bus stood up and nodded at me, I pushed gently through the people, gratefully sinking into the sit provided for me. --- As I adjusted my skirt, a van blasting music approached from behind. A whistle and shout from the front seat drew an exasperated sigh from me, and I turned my head as the van drew parallel. The...

Every so often I am woken by a thud in the bed next to me as M launches himself into the air, spins a neat 180 degrees and lands on his other side, sleeping all the while. Most people roll over, my husband flies. From the belly shudders and pokes that are growing in intensity every day, I'm guessing that our daughter is already perfecting the art of the mid-air rollover. Earlier this week a work seminar was brightened quite considerably by a small lump bulging out of the bump twice in quick succession. It's getting cosy in there and Baby J is stretching her limbs, making her presence felt even before we see her face or choose her name. 25 weeks gone.

I hoisted up my dress and the doctor tucked the paper towel into my underwear before squirting a thick layer of gel onto my protruding belly. The nurse operating the scanning equipment smiled at me and placed the transducer (yes, I looked that up) in the middle of the gel. As the picture came up on the screen in front of me, I caught M's eye and we smiled as our baby moved about, the nurse showing us the whole body, from top to toe. As the doctor did his job, counting fingers and measuring heartbeats and internal organs, we marvelled at the technology. The changing colours highlighting structures, the speakers letting us hear the heartbeat, the clarity of the images of our little bean; a real little baby in there. I felt a movement and saw it reflected in the image. The baby yawned, a small hand hovering by the head as the mouth widened and then settled back. Incredible. Our baby bean is a girl. We're going to have a daughter.

'Can you feel it yet? Can you feel it moving?' For the past couple of weeks this has been the question on everyone's lips. The answer at first was 'no, it's a bit early yet' followed by 'no! it's so annoying!' and then 'I don't think so...' Mum says it feels like a funny swooshing kind of movement, and the doc tells me he's heard it's a bit like butterflies fluttering around. Other women have continuously told me 'bubbles! it's like bubbles in there.' The thing is when I think of bubbles, I think of clusters of small airy bubbles, dancing about, floating in the breeze. I don't think of big gassy bubbles slowly seeping up through thick layers of mud, suddenly popping at the top and splattering drops of gloopy ooze all around. Which, to be honest, is more like the kind of thing I'm feeling in there. We saw three magpies in the park today. Ten days and we'll know if they were right... or maybe the scan will j...

The church was full, and not just Polish-church full but Polish-church-on-an-important-day-like-Palm-Sunday full. Every seat of the cavernous church was taken and crowds had filled every available space beside the pews and in the little alcoves to the side. We found a space to stand in, and I settled in for the long haul. As the mass proceeded, I tuned out the priest's monotone and looked around me at the families and kids holding tightly to their brightly coloured palms. I'm always amazed by the ability of Poles to recreate Poland in Brussels. Someone's doing a good trade in palemki at any rate. I'm reading the God Delusion at the moment, and have always been a bit on the fence when it comes to the God stuff, but Polish religion has always struck me as such a fundamental part of the nationality, the culture, that philosphical debates about the imponderables of religion tend to seem irrelevant. I have a soft spot for the music and a problem with the intolerance but th...

As we neared the shop door, I noticed the woman coming towards us, leaning heavily on her crutch as she approached. I pushed open the door and she spoke: 'I was here first, you sped up, just because I can't walk fast...' my jaw dropped and I held the door open for her. 'Just joking!' she laughed, 'it was just a joke. Your face was a picture.' I smiled, bemused. I moved into the shop and waited for Marek to choose his beer. 'You believe everything everyone says?' she asked, from across the shop floor. But before I had a chance to answer, she pose her next question. 'What star sign are you?' 'Scorpio' I answered, an eyebrow raised, fascinated by this strange woman. She fixed her eye on me. 'Now that's surprising. I wouldn't have guessed that.' 'Really?' I smiled. 'Maybe you were just not expecting a joke. Maybe your mind was elsewhere.' I moved towards Marek and asked if he was almost done. 'Aha!'...

Day one we found the flat. Day two we signed the contract. Day three the test was positive. Then it all began... the trousers getting tighter, the scans moving from bean to peanut to a baby-shaped mass of dancing limbs and waving hands, the gasps and smiles as we told people. It's a very strange thing when you realise you are responsible for what will be a new life; a new human being. Strange and ultimately terrifying when you consider the responsibility you have taken on; the amount of worrying and learning you have committed yourself to and the thrilling open horizon of what your life will become. We're excited. Let the next stage of our lives begin.